I saw Nolan's The Odyssey: 10/10

Published on 30 July 2026

Twice. I saw The Odyssey twice in one month, first in Montpellier with my sister and my nephews, then in Clermont-Ferrand with friends, and if an IMAX screening crosses my path, I'm ready to do it a third time. I hadn't felt that urge in years.

For context: it's the new Christopher Nolan, released mid-July, around 250 million dollars of budget, his most expensive film, and the first in history shot entirely on IMAX 70 mm cameras. Hence my regret, by the way. I saw it twice in regular theaters when this film was built for IMAX, and that annoys me a little.

The story, you probably know it better than I do: Ulysses' return to Ithaca after the Trojan War, based on Homer's poem, written roughly 2,800 years ago. Me, I didn't. I never read The Odyssey at school, or I forgot it so thoroughly that it amounts to the same thing. Everyone I saw the film with had all the references; I had zilch.

And I think that's exactly why I loved it. I didn't spend my time waiting for the cyclops or wondering what Circe would look like. Even during the scenes everyone was waiting for, I didn't know who was who. I was discovering a story, plain and simple, the way people must have discovered it around a fire centuries ago, and honestly that's a luxury.

The rest finished me off. The photography is magnificent, digital effects are almost absent and you can see it on screen, the sound is as deafening as it is gripping, it didn't bother me for a second, and the music is superb. I was never bored. Not for a minute.

One thing did bother me at times, and it's very secondary: the four-star American cast. Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Elliot Page, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson... They're all excellent, I have nothing to hold against them, but I think I would have preferred the same film with unknowns, so that nothing pulled me out of the myth. I'll add that nobody is glamorized or sexualized in there, which probably wasn't a given with a cast like that, and that's cool.

So my advice is simple. You have an IMAX theater nearby (so you live in Montpellier, London or Brussels, if you're in Europe)? Go, don't think. You don't? Go anyway, in the biggest theater you can find. As for me, I'm watching for a free IMAX slot for round three, and I can't even promise it will be the last.

By Paingout